Passage
by omens
Summary: Either way, her heart still clutches just by looking at him. Mia centric Mia/Lucas


**Name:** Chris

**Title:** Passage

**Fandom:** Degrassi

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Either way her heart still clutches just by looking at him. Before, it was nerves caused by a cute guy. Now…she's not sure really. Mia centric Mia/Lucas

…0…

Mia is twelve the first time she sees Lucas.

It's the first day of middle school and she changed her outfit four times that morning before her mother finally shoved her out the door in fear she would be late. The nerves swimming around in her stomach cause her to smooth her skirt over and over again, certain she's about to be called out on her lame outfit, and she collides with someone else-someone much sturdier than her who grips her waist to keep her upright.

The first thing she sees are his eyes. They're dark and warm, swirling with humor at her flushed face. She can feel the heat spreading over her cheeks and at that moment, all Mia wants is for the Earth to open her up and swallow her whole.

"You alright?" He smiles at her and Mia feels like she would collapse if he wasn't still holding her up. Now she knows what it means to have your knees turn to jelly.

"Y-" The word stutters in her throat and more blood rushes to her face. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just a little klutzy."

He smiles and her heart stops, just like in those books of her mother's that technically she's not allowed to read, and she feels a fluttery feeling in her stomach that's unlike anything she's ever experienced before.

Even without learning his name, Mia swears that everything around her is just a little bit dimmer when he turns and heads back towards his group of friends, catcalling at him from the spot by the fence they've wandered to without him. By now Holly J and Anya have caught up to her, asking if she's okay and what the guy said. Anya's clearly impressed; he's cute and looks older and didn't laugh at her for being clumsy. Holly J though, spying the crowd he's joined, doesn't look as enthusiastic and leads them toward the front doors.

She wonders if she'll ever see him again-really see him. There are bound to be times when she spies him across the cafeteria or in the hallways between class, but she wants more than that. She wants to walk out of first period every day and find him there waiting for her.

Despite the risk of his laughing at her for being a dopey Grade 7 with a burgeoning crush, Mia tosses a look over her shoulder-just to check- and finds his eyes meeting hers at the same moment. It was almost like he was scanning the crowd for her.

It seems like a gift; when he turns to her and smiles-like fortune blessing her and making her stomach flutter all over again.

"Lucas!" One of the other guys call, exasperated, and his head turns, severing their shared look.

Mia's heart flips over. _Lucas._

…0…

Mia is thirteen when the stick turns blue.

When Lucas found her after that first day of school, coming from her homeroom and asks if she wants to go get a 'soda or something' it felt like a switch had been flicked. Everything was different. She was different.

Fast forward a year where she's earned a reputation for partying and the status that comes with an older boyfriend who's friends are not exactly model students. Combined with Holly J making her go out for cheerleading, it feels most days like Mia's on top of the world...

…until a solitary First Response test pulls the rug out from under her.

She doesn't actually think she might be, not seriously. But Holly J's endless comments about her mood swings and weight gain begin to make her nervous-so she just takes the test to shut her up once and for all.

The first thought in Mia's mind is that she can't breath. There suddenly isn't enough air in her bathroom so she runs out onto the balcony, grateful her mom isn't home. Her second thought is that it's wrong. She's just late and that's why it was positive. She'll get her period soon and everything will be fine.

Only she doesn't.

Not soon, not later. Three months go by and her belly now has a slight bulge on it that her clothes aren't hiding anymore.

Her mom asks why she quit cheerleading. Her friends wonder why she doesn't ever want to go shopping with them anymore. Her teachers pull her aside and ask why her school work is slipping.

And Lucas, he keeps badgering her with questions about why she never wants to go to parties with him anymore. It isn't as if she can tell him that drinking and smoking will hurt the baby, not when she can't even admit to herself that there is a baby. There aren't any explanations for why pot isn't a good idea anymore or why sex is definitely out.

Once Lucas sees her stomach he'll either know she's pregnant or dump her for getting fat. There won't be another time when Lucas will walk her home from a party, their shoulders brushing and their palms pressed together, the sky dark and starry; he'll press warm lips to hers by the gate in a quick kiss so her mother-always watching for them from the living room window-won't see. No longer will he be hovering near her lockers before lunch, all smiles, wanting her to go off campus because the cafeteria food sucks.

So she begins to avoid being alone with him as much as possible. And it actually **hurts**.

The third time she skips out on a party at Nick's Lucas shows up at her apartment. He throws rocks at her window so he won't wake her mother and she grabs her biggest robe even though it's still pretty warm outside now. Her top is way too small now and rides up to show her stomach whenever she moves.

"What's going on? You said you were coming tonight." Mia can smell the smoke on his jacket, the beer on his breath, and her stomach lurches. She turns her head and takes a deep breath-him seeing her get sick is the worst thing that could happen right now. "What?" He's noticed and she wants nothing more than to go back inside and hide under her rose print comforter. "Are you sick? Why didn't you just tell me?"

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that he's pissed-and more than a little drunk.

If anybody were to ask Mia, she'll say that she loves Lucas. He's cute and treats her well and is really sweet to her when they're alone. Most importantly, he's the only guy she's ever slept with and that's a big deal to her. One night when she was supposed to be asleep, Mia overheard her parent's arguing about how many guys her mom had dated in high school-any of them could be Mia's father and she knows it. Mia had cried that night, not only because her Daddy could think that but also because she knows it's true. Mia has her mom's dark curls and brown eyes, inherited straight from her grandmother.

Lucas can tell there's something wrong with her. Really, it's the only time she's quiet-she even talks in her sleep. But he keeps pushing at it while they sit on the old swing set outside her building for the better part of an hour and that's when she feels it.

Something in her stomach flutters around, but it's different from the usual flutterings-butterflies-she feels around Lucas. This is like little goldfish doing laps around her belly, swishing against things with tiny fins.

That's the moment she knows. Her period isn't coming any time soon and the weight gain isn't going to stop either.

She's pregnant.

Mia doesn't want to have a baby. She doesn't like them, not really. They cry and spit up and need constant attention. She's only held one baby in her life-her cousin Annie's little girl-whom she handed back after twenty seconds when the baby began to wail at the top of its lungs.

It's not that she even wanted to do it to begin with. It hurt the first time and each time after that wasn't much better-a little, but not much. She just wanted to make Lucas happy and honestly, she was curious. She doesn't think of it very often, only sometimes, like when Lucas raises his arms. maybe bends down to pick up his bag, and his shirt kind of edges up and she spies that strip of tanned flesh and then it's not sex; its making love with a guy she's crazy about, right? It has to be since he says he loves her.

She thought she would be older when she had sex. It's such a grown up, 'someday' kind of thing that her friends giggle about at slumber parties. It's a big deal, just like her mom said when they had The Talk, it really is-no matter how much Lucas claims otherwise.

Mia is terrified of giving birth. It hurts (A Lot, she's heard) and is way gross. That's why grown ups have to do it-not kids. She can't be a mom yet. There are still Hello Kitty stickers on her notebooks; the scratch and sniff kind that Lucas says give him a head ache.

What is she-no, **they**-going to do?

"Lucas," she whispers, a hand finding it's way to her belly, "I have to tell you something."

…0…

Mia is sixteen when Lucas walks up to her in the Degrassi gym.

Almost an entire year has gone by since she's seen him last. It's been even longer since they've spoken.

It's hard to say which is more difficult; seeing him everyday at Lakehurst while he ignored her, or having him surprise her here when she's not expecting it.

Either way her heart still clutches just by looking at him. Before, it was nerves caused by a cute guy. Now…she's not sure really. Pain? Disappointment? Maybe a touch of bitterness?

Lucas has changed. Physically, at any rate. He's already garnered the reputation for bullying and general jerkiness. On the outside however…he's still the same boy that made her heart skip a beat. Mia feels certain, that if they didn't have their history, she'd most likely fall for him all over again.

But they do have it. They have three and a half years of him ignoring her, of his friends calling her a slut, of crying herself to sleep along with her daughter.

There's a lot of Lucas in Isabella. Mia can see it whenever her little brow scrunches up in anger or frustration. Most people claim that Isabella looks like her, but that's only because of the dark hair and eyes-both of which Lucas has too. Not knowing Lucas though, it would be difficult to see that his daughter has his smile and makes the same facial expressions he does.

It's been a lonely few years for Mia, especially without JT. But things are much better at Degrassi where no one knows her. She doesn't have to walk the halls and pretend she doesn't hear the snide remarks from guys who have said they've slept with her and the girls who believe them. She has friends again and there's no Holly J around to ridicule her and throw her past in her face.

And now Lakehurst is at Degrassi, just months after the feud and JT's death. No one wants them there, on one. Especially Mia.

Lakehurst is where she nearly ruined her life. Degrassi is where she can fix it.

And more than once she's wished that Lucas were around to take Isabella, even for an hour, so that maybe she can hear herself think again.

There's something inside of her that screams 'too little, too late' when it finally does happen. Yes, she wants the time to herself, but she also knows he's doing it for her benefit, not Izzy's, and that's enough to set her mommy senses on high alert.

Still…she's lonely. Most guys (Nick) are only interested in her cause they figure if she gave it up at thirteen, then she's gotta be a sure thing. The rest run screaming at the news she has a kid. And without JT…

So she gives him another chance. He's doing pretty good, even if has only been a week, taking care of Isabella and even giving her some cash. Then there's his insistence that he wants her back-wants them back. The rose at the dance and Izzy's flashy birthday present are proof enough that he's serious.

Isn't it worth giving him anther chance if her daughter gets to have her dad finally?

…0…

Mia is nineteen when Lucas asks her to marry him.

In the back of her mind she's always sort of thought the day was going to come. They've been together, again, for almost three years and Izzy adores her Daddy. His being absent for the first three years of her life don't even matter; she's a Daddy's girl now and it makes Mia's heart go _thud-thud_ whenever she sees them together.

Things were touch and go for a while for them, mostly in the beginning when he was still being an ass at school and she wasn't willing to move in with him after graduation. As much as she wanted it to work, it was hard to forget about the night he left her on the swing set, sobbing and heartbroken, and all the night after that. She wants to be sure this time that he's in it for the long haul. She owes her baby that much.

That doesn't make it any less of a shock when it actually happens though.

Isabella is coming off a nasty case of the flu that's cost both of them a week of classes and Lucas's hours are getting later every day. Asking him to cut back is pointless. More than once he's told her that he needs the hours if he wants to start his own construction company some day and they need the money period. So here they are; all of them cranky and exhausted, with no end in sight for the time being.

Needless to say, Lucas asking her over cold pizza at midnight while she's simultaneously trying to write an English paper and pack tomorrow's lunches is a shock. It's a good thing she's holding the Wonderbread and not her IMac or there would be more than crumbs on the kitchen floor.

"Are you…are you serious?"

"Yeah." He's giving her that smile, the one who used to make her go weak in the knees, all cocky and self assured. At twelve, she loved that he was so confident. It made him seem cool and edgy to her. "We're going to eventually anyway, right? Why not now?"

That's the thing. There is no good reason for not now. There's only them and their daughter, going on two years in the same apartment, in an easy routine of school and work and family time on the weekends. The only things that would change are her last name and them wearing rings.

Her mouth opens, a 'yes' about to jump out when the thought crosses her mind that maybe there's another reason behind his spontaneous proposal other than love. "You wanna get married?" isn't what she's always dreamed of. Fairy tales aren't real though. Especially not when you become a mother before high school.

Before Mia says anything, she remembers the night she told Lucas she wants to be a optometrist. He'd laughed; not because he thought she couldn't do it, but because he couldn't fathom the idea of someone wanting to go to school longer than absolutely necessary. That doesn't mean he hasn't been behind her a hundred percent.

Midterms were an absolute nightmare for her that first semester. She was stressed and behind on her work and her mom was constantly on her back about how well Isabella was doing not living with her Grandma. Mia cried the night before her biology exam. She needed an A just if there was any hope of getting into the Optometry program, and Isabella had drawn kittens all over her lab notes. But when she woke up the next morning, she found Lucas asleep on the couch and her notes typed up on the kitchen table. There was even fresh coffee waiting for her.

Mia knows Lucas loves her. She's sure of it this time. Not just because he retyped ten pages of notes for her and made (reheated) dinner that night, but because he's changed from the party guy she met into someone who just wants to stay home with her and Izzy. When they were together the first time, he admitted that all he wanted in life was a home of his own, a job he liked, and a family. His parents divorced when he was young and they fought constantly, he and his sister went weeks without speaking…he just wanted a family that he could be in without all the drama.

During their time apart, Mia had decided that was just a line he fed her to get her into bed. Now she knows that he was just too scared at fourteen be that much of an adult. So was she but he was the one with the luxury of shifting the responsibility to someone else.

Not that she still thinks about that.

It enters her mind that he wants he to stay at home and be a housewife-have more kids and do the whole soccer mom, PTA thing. Is that it?

"I want to finish school," she says simply, hoping that a fight isn't imminent. One more thing this week and she may crack.

Lucas looks at her like she's crazy. "Okay," he laughs. "Geez, Jonesy, I'm not asking you to play June Cleaver here."

Some sort of weight lifts off of her chest, bringing a giggle up with it, that feels like it has been sitting there ever since that little blue line first appeared on the white stick. "You can't call me that much longer," she teases. "Not if I say yes."

Large familiar hands find their way around her waist, pulling her solidly against his chest. She snuggles into him on instinct. "Are you saying yes?"

Shrugging, she looks up into his eyes, setting off those damn butterflies again. You'd think she'd be used to those flutterings by now. "Why not?" she says flippantly and kisses him before he can retort.

Just like it should be.

…0…


End file.
